Single 3D View Form Introduction

The Single 3D View Form is the user's view into the scene they're currently editing. By moving, rotating and zooming a virtual camera the user may view all objects in the scene or choose to focus on a single item. The Form also supports a number of different drawing methods that you'd expect in a typical 3D modeling application.

This section describes the various parts that make up the Single 3D View Form and how the user operates them.

Interface Tour

Below is a description of the various controls and informational text that makes up the Single 3D View Form.

Form Menu

The Single 3D View Form menu has a couple of options that are saved with the layout. The first menu item toggles the display of the reference grid.

The second menu Toolbar Display determines if the Form's toolbar is drawn and if so, in what location. The Form's toolbar is used to hold a number of tools that are only relevant to the current viewport and are described below.

Display Type Popup

The Display Type popup is used to set where the camera views the scene and its projection method. The popup's selection is saved with the layout. The following choices are available:

The Texture (UV) display type is special in that no tool or selection operations currently work within its viewport. It is used for display purposes only and will likely change in a future release. Also note that the given keyboard shortcuts above only work with the viewport currently under the mouse pointer.

Display Mode Popup

The Display Mode popup determines how the scene is drawn and its selection is saved with the layout. The following choices are available:

Reference shapes are the exception to the display mode setting as they are always drawn as textured to distinguish themselves from static meshes.

Lighting Options Popup

The Lighting Options popup determines how the in-scene lighting and optional sunlight affects object rendering. The popup's selection is saved with the layout. The following choices are available:

Draw Edges Button

When this toggle button is enabled all brushes and static meshes draw in the current display mode with a wire frame overlay highlighting their polygonal edges. The color of the edges may be modified with the Outline Color preference found under the System->Preferences... menu.

View Controls

The View Controls allow manipulation of the Form and viewport and will display differently depending on the current display type. Orthographic displays do not have the Rotate button.

The Maximize button is used to toggle the Form from its current size to its maximum size covering all other Single 3D View Forms given the current layout. Due to the dynamic nature of Constructor's layout the maximize operation does a 'flood fill' of sorts to determine how large the Form may be maximized. The Maximize button's keyboard shortcut, numpad 0, is applied to the Single 3D View Form currently under the mouse pointer.

The Target Selected button will make the viewport always center on the currently selected object. While something is targeted the viewport's display may not be moved although the rotation and zoom operations are still operational. When nothing is selected the viewport may be manipulated as usual. The Target Selected button's keyboard shortcut, numpad decimal, is applied to the Single 3D View Form currently under the mouse pointer.

The last three controls are drag buttons that duplicate the functionality described in the Manipulating the Viewport section below. The user holds down the left mouse button on the Rotate, Translate or Zoom controls and drags the mouse. This will rotate, translate or zoom the viewport as appropriate.

The Grid

The grid is the ground plane reference in Constructor, or more specifically it represents the XY plane at Z=0. It is drawn with major and minor tick marks whose spacing is dependant on the distance of the view's camera to the target. The current minor tick mark spacing (the light gray lines) is always shown in the bottom right corner of the viewport. In the example Single 3D View Form image at the top of this page this value is '0.5m' or half a meter.

Other than the individual viewport grid drawing, all grid parameters are modified on the Preferences Form under the Grid section. This is under the Prefs tab in the default layout.

Each of these settings is described below.

Grid Units

As the camera zooms in and out from the target the grid resizes itself to remain useful. The steps at which this resizing occurs is determined by this popup. Valid values are:

Snap To Grid and Grid Spacing

These two settings go together. When Snap To Grid is activated all Axis Gizmo and tool mouse operations in the viewport will snap to the nearest Grid Spacing unit. In the example image above the snapping occurs every 0.01m or 1cm.

Back Plane and BP Perspective

The Back Plane is another reference plane that is used only within a Perspective display type viewport. Its purpose is to provide a 2D build reference when using tools so that most geometry creation may be performed while working in the Perspective mode. To see the Back Plane in action, activate the Back Plane (to draw the plane) and BP Perspective (to have it affect tool operations) preferences.

The Back Plane is a grid drawn in light gray and with only every other minor tick mark. The orientation of the Back Plane is automatically adjusted based on the camera's orientation in the viewport to sit on the XY, YZ, or XZ planes. The current orientation is also shown with the Back Plane Reference gizmo in the lower left corner of the viewport.

The position of the Back Plane is also determined by the location of the Perspective viewport's camera as it 'snaps' to each major tick mark on the ground reference grid.

With the Back Plane active -- whether it is drawn or not -- it acts as the construction plane that intersects all mouse operations. It's like working with the orthographic views but within the Perspective display.

When the Back Plane is disabled using the BP Prespective preference, then the ground reference plane becomes the Back Plane of sorts and all mouse operations within a Perspective view intersect with it.

The best way to understand the Back Plane is to use it. Try using the Build Cube tool a few times in the Perspective view while rotating the camera around and changing the Back Planes' orientation.

Mode or Tool Indicator

This line of text at the bottom right of the viewport simply indicates if the user is in selection mode, written as Select, or is using a tool. When a tool is active its name is displayed here.

Selection Count

This line of text at the bottom right of the viewport provides both a count of the number of selected objects as well as an indication of the current selection mode.

Current Action Center

The current Action Center determines how the user interacts with selected geometry using the tools. For example, where the center of rotation or scale will be. This is set either from the Tools Form's Modify tab or using the Edit->Action Center menu. The current Action Center is displayed over the viewport as a reminder of its setting.

World Axis Orientation Gizmo

This gizmo is located in the lower left of the viewport and displays three different pieces of information. The first is that it shows the orientation of the world's axis as viewed through the viewport's camera. This is displayed as red, green and blue lines representing the X, Y and Z axis.

The second piece of information is a representation of the current Back Plane, if any.

The orientation of the Back Plane is drawn as a white grid over the world axis. If the Back Plane is turned off then this preview is not drawn.

Finally this gizmo indicates that a custom Workplane has been activated. How it indicates this depends upon the viewport's current display mode.

In all cases an orange indicator -- either a grid or an arrow -- highlights the XY plane which is the plane that all custom Workplanes map to when active.

Toolbar

The Toolbar may be activated and placed around the Form using the Form Menu. It currently contains four tools which are really meant to operate on the orthographic views although they are functional in the Perspective view.

When one of the Toolbar buttons is pushed it activates one of the alignment tools. These take the outermost bounding box edge of all selected objects and move them to align with this edge. For example the Align Top tool will move all selected objects such that their top bounding box edge rests on the top of the displayed selection bounds. In this case the terms 'top', 'bottom', 'left' and 'right' are all relative to the viewport and not the World axis.

Manipulating the Viewport

Using the mouse is the primary method of manipulating the viewport's camera. Whenever the camera's view is changed a small axis appears within the viewport. This provides a frame of reference for a number of the camera's movement options. There are a few options for the viewport's camera which may be found under the Prefs tab of the standard layout's Properties Form, the Preferences Form itself, or by using the System->Preferences menu.

The camera may operate in two modes: Orbit and Free Roaming. The current mode is toggled by clicking on the Free Cam check box or pressing the C keyboard shortcut.

Orbit always rotates and zooms the camera in reference to the target and may never go past the target. When you move the camera you're actually moving the target and dragging the camera along. Free Roaming makes the camera act like in a FPS game where rotation is centered on the camera and zooming moves the camera and target together. The Move Speed preference determines how fast the camera may roam the scene.

Depending on the camera's mode mouse buttons and keyboard shortcuts behave differently. A summary is provided below.

There are also keyboard shortcuts that operate on the Single 3D View Form that is currently under the mouse pointer. These are listed below:

The Axis Gizmo

Information on the Axis Gizmo may be found on its own page.

Using Tool Handles

Information on using standard tool handles may be found on its own page.